The Confederate Flag and Racism

Karen Russell writes the following in her article on Huffington Post this morning:

On what planet is the Confederate Flag NOT racist? Here on Planet Earth, the Klan uses the Confederate Flag as symbol of white supremacy. Get a clue. If the Klan is using your symbol, it's racist.

To deny that it is racist is to deny common sense and to ignore recent history.

The flag enjoyed a huge renaissance during the Civil Rights era. Angry, white Southerners brought it back to show they weren't going to take this whole desegregation thing lying down. They adopted it again as a symbol of hatred and defiance. They dusted it off to terrorize blacks who had the audacity to fight Jim Crow laws.

Read the entire article here.

plez sez: i rarely pull someone else's post into plezWorld, because you can just as easily go to their post and read it yourself. but this one really resonated with me and i wanted it on my blog, as well.

i've lived in the south for over 25 years, so i've seen my fill of this offensive symbol (for a small fee, you can even have one on the license plate for your car). and i have not met one confederate flag waving yahoo who i would say is not a racist! this confederate flag issue is so wrong and so offensive on so many levels, it is hard to put emotions aside and write my thoughts coherently. but here goes:

• the "it's my heritage" argument: guess what, buddy, it's part of my heritage, too! it's just a slimy and dirty and hateful heritage: it's a heritage where hate was used to subjugate and KILL Black people, it's a heritage where Black peoples rights were abused and ignored, and it's a heritage that gives the flag waver tacit approval to speak his/her hate in public without saying a word. when you say that you are not a racist for wanting to wave or display a confederate flag, you are pissing on my leg and saying that it is raining!
  
  
• the "civil war memorabilia" argument: guess what, buddy, the civil war was fought to destroy this country and preserve the institution of slavery. i don't care how many stories about the number of slaves who fought for the confederacy, because those slaves did not know what they were fighting for (similar to our troops who are currently in Iraq, but that's for another post).
  
  
• the "you want your history, but you want to destroy mine" argument: guess what, buddy, the civil war was fought to destroy this country and preserve the institution of slavery. that is something that we should never forget and it should be part of every child's educational development. don't teach children about the nobility of the Lost Cause, teach them about the folly of the southern states judgment.
  
  
• the "states rights" argument: guess what, buddy, no state has the right to promulgate hate against its citizens. in most southern states, the Black population is very sizeable and everything possible was done to keep those citizens in check (anyone remember Jim Crow?). the people who lamented the end of Jim Crow were the same ones who were waving the confederate flag while they were doing it! this is no different than a group of skinheads waving a nazi swaskita, it is no less hateful or threatening.

South Carolina should not have been given the opportunity to host neither the Republican nor the Democratic debates on national television. i specifically wrote nothing about the debates because i did not watch either debate, it is part of my personal boycott of the state (i only go there or go through there if necessary).

[hat tip: The Huffington Post]